Morphine
by Labyrinth01
Summary: Scully has come to terms with the fact that her brain tumor is fatal, and she is determined to die with dignity.  How does Mulder react when he discovers that Scully plans to take her own life when the suffering becomes too great?  End of Season 4.
1. Chapter 1

**Friday, March 14**

**St. Sebastian Medical Center**

**Baltimore, Maryland**

Scully spoke to ease the tension.

"Aren't we supposed to say something like, we should see each other under better circumstances?"

The gray haired woman who sat across from her smiled. "You have a point. I haven't seen you in five years and you drop by with this request?" Mary rolled her eyes dramatically. "Couldn't you have written first?" The warm expression on the woman's face relaxed Scully, and she exhaled for what felt like the first time in minutes.

"I'm really sorry, Mary. I feel terrible appearing out of the blue and asking for your help with this. But you were the only person I could think of, who I knew would understand. This is not exactly the kind of thing you can ask your own doctor to do for you."

"Unless I was your doctor." Mary leaned back in her leather chair and stretched out her arms. The cuff of her navy blazer tugged out from underneath her lab coat. Scully marveled how professional she looked. Scully remembered Mary from medical school, with her gray bun always coming undone as she rushed to class in old jeans and dirty sneakers. Mary was by far the oldest student in her class. As a 43 year old mother of two teenagers, she had more demands on her time than the rest of them. She had returned to school after growing tired of the "Betty Crocker act", as she referred to full time mothering, but caring for others seemed to be in her blood: she acted as a parent to all the other students, and would frequently have the poorest and loneliest over to her house for dinner. Scully was commonly one of those dinner guests.

Mary Sullivan always knew what kind of doctor she wanted to be. After watching two parents and her five year old daughter die of cancer, she was interested only in Oncology. As an oncologist, she earned the reputation as an empathetic clinician with a dedication to pain control. But what was also known about Dr. Sullivan that was rarely spoken out loud was her willingness to be a participant in euthanasia. "We put our animals to sleep but we make humans die horrible deaths—what kind of culture does that make us?" she had argued with the professor in her Medical Ethics class. Being idealistic medical student, few agreed with her at the time, but, Scully suspected, that changed when her classmates saw firsthand the pain of illness and felt the complete helplessness familiar to doctors who can no longer cure, but only comfort.

"What stage is the cancer?" Mary asked, bringing Scully out of her revelry and back to the reality of why she was there.

"Stage 2, they think. There isn't any sign of metastasis, but the tumor has gotten larger."

Mary laced her hands together and pressed her lips to her forefingers. "You realize that you can possibly live a really long time with this cancer, don't you? Especially if the radiation treatment successfully shrinks the tumor."

"I realize that, Mary. And I also realize that I could wake up tomorrow with gross neurological deficits. Or liver or bone metastasis. Or in incredible pain. I have to be prepared for the worst."

"You are still working, right? Able to do everything you want to do?"

"Yes. Besides occasional nosebleed, I am pretty asymptomatic. I haven't had to cut down on work at all. If I did, I think that would kill me."

Mary smiled again. "Ah, still the same Dana Scully. I remember that we all used to make fun of you in med school for working yourself to death. Some of our classmates closed the bars, but you always closed the library, even on weekends. Some things never change."

"Oh, if you think I'm bad, you should meet my partner! The man is a maniac. I don't think he has taken a vacation since he started at the FBI. He makes me look like a sloth." Scully shook her head as if to clear it. She didn't want to think about Mulder. If he knew I was here, he would be furious, she thought. But this isn't about him, this is about me. For a change.

She hadn't been entirely honest to Mary about the tumor not affecting her. She had the first headache three weeks ago, which came on with such intensity that she found herself on her kitchen floor gasping for breath. She half expected to look up and find someone holding a baseball bat over her head. Through tears, she was able to drag herself to the bathroom and found the nearly forgotten bottle of Percoset her doctor had prescribed her last year after she fractured her wrist. She swallowed two of them without water, and then curled up in fetal position on the bathmat and waited for the pain to stop. It did, but not until she threw up twice, each time amplifying the already unbearable pain.

The second time, and then the third, happened when she was on the road with Mulder. Both coincided with torrential nosebleeds in the middle of the night. She had been so frightened from the pain that she almost called out to Mulder, who was staying in the adjoining room. She had to put a pillow over her mouth to stop herself. I won't let him see me like this, she thought. I won't. Ever.

The headaches, even more so than the cancer diagnoses, brought up unwanted memories of her illness after the abduction. She remembered pulling herself into consciousness and trying to focus on her mother's face—and Mulder's. On her mom's face she read love and relief, but on Mulder's she saw fear. And guilt. Always the guilt. In the days following waking up from the coma, Dana felt like a child. She remembers the shame of having to ask for a bedpan because she was too weak to get out of bed. She remembers trying to walk for the first time with Mulder and fainting in the hall, falling clumsily in a heap as Mulder grabbed at her. She remembers being unable to move her arms to feed herself because they were taped to boards to stabilize the IV's. Mulder had brought her pad thai from her favorite restaurant, but she denied her hunger rather than let Mulder help feed her. That horrible memory flashes in her head every time she feels Mulder is acting overprotective. What he must have thought then, watching me unable to move my arms, knowing damn well I was hungry but rather starve to death than let my partner feed me. No wonder he perceives me as fragile, she thought bitterly. And stubborn.

That will never happen again, she thought as she nervously brushed a piece of lint off of her skirt and looked out Mary's office window. I will never again sacrifice my dignity in the name of medical science. I refuse to suffer and die slowly so people can stand around my grave and say how brave I was. What is so fucking noble about dying of a brain tumor? I'll lose my mind first, and then my body through a bunch of tubes and machines. Never. I will die on my terms. She realized that Mary was speaking to her in a serious tone again.

"…are several people in the Baltimore medical community who contribute whatever they can to my cause. All anonymously, of course, but at great risk to their careers. Hospice nurses are the best. Several of them give me narcotics left over after one of their home care patients die. No one ever misses it."

She leaned forward and rested her arms on her desk. She looked at Scully sitting across from her, studying the younger woman's face. She lowered her voice. "Now, I don't want to come across sounding like one of those cold doctors who can tell a person they are dying and then go to lunch without a second thought. But I just need to be honest with you. Taking a bunch of pills is not always the greatest means. You run the risk of the narcotics making you ill and vomiting before the job is done. I prefer IV morphine. It's quick and easy, and guaranteed to do what you want it to do. It suppresses your breathing as you become more and more sedated. I think it is really the most gentle, painless death."

She continued to stare at Scully, looking for some kind of reaction to her blunt words. Scully's face was unreadable.

"That's what I thought too. I think I could start an IV on myself okay, so that shouldn't be a problem."

Mary reached out and place her wrinkled hand on Scully's smooth, dry one. She gave her hand a quick squeeze. "Promise me, Dana, that you will surround yourself with people you love when you die. That is the point of this whole thing, remember? To die before the suffering becomes so great, too great, so you can have your dignity . Promise me?"

Scully placed her free hand on top of Mary's. "Of course," she lied. She knew she had to die alone. She didn't want her family there for this. Or Mulder. Especially Mulder.

Mary sighed as she stood up and walked to the corner of her office. She took a key out of her lab coat pocket and opened a small file cabinet that was almost completely covered by the overgrown spider plant that sat on top of it. She reached in and pulled out two small bags of IV fluid. She fished for a moment longer until she found IV tubing and a needle. She carefully locked the cabinet and walked back to her desk, and rummaging through a drawer until she found a brown paper bag. She put the IV solution and the supplies in he bag and handed it to Scully.

"You should piggyback the two bags and keep the line wide open, Dana." she said softly. Scully looked into the kindly woman's dark grey eyes, watching a strand of gray hair escape Mary's bun and nodded slowly.

"I don't know how to thank you, Mary. Go home tonight and know that you have done a very compassionate thing." Dana watched the woman turn away so Scully couldn't see the pained look on her face. She reached down to her feet, carefully put the supplies in her briefcase, picked up her raincoat, and stood up to leave. As she took a step toward the door, she felt a hand grab at her sleeve. She turned her head as the first tear trickled down Mary's face.

"This is not a substitution for hope, do you understand? I did not just hand you an easy way out. You are a strong woman, Dana. You have to fight this." Her voice cracked.

Scully nodded, struggling to hold her own tears back. She reached out to embrace the older doctor and then silently walked out the door. She got in her car and headed back to D.C trying to occupy her mind with anything besides the reason behind her visit to Mary Sullivan


	2. Chapter 2

**Tuesday, April 8**

**Washington D.C.**

**Hoover Building**

"I brought you another cup of coffee. You look like you're getting a little ragged." Mulder put a large cup in front of Scully. "Skim milk, two sugars. Just the way Madame likes it."

Scully's stomach grumbled. What she really wanted was some dinner, but Mulder was insistent on going through the stacks of files he had on his desk before they left for Ohio in the morning. She wrapped her hands around the Starbucks coffee cup to feel the warmth. As usual, the basement was cool with a hint of damp in the air. She was not looking forward to spending an indeterminable amount of time in Yellow Springs, Ohio investigating a psychic who seems to have an uncanny knack of figuring out every murder case the local police department had consulted her on. Skinner wanted the partners to investigate a possible role the psychic might have had in the murders, because even the locals were becoming suspicious of the woman's 100% accuracy. Mulder's interest, of course, was different.

"Thanks for the coffee, Mulder. How many more cases do we have to go?"

"Um, about ten more."

"But we have already reviewed fourteen! How long has this woman been at her crystal ball, anyway?" Scully raised her eyebrow at Mulder.

"I told you this already. Pay attention, will you? The cops went to this woman only a year ago when they had hit dead ends in a child abduction and murder case. The psychic then gave them information about several cold cases in the area that were long forgotten. They charged all but one of the suspects, and since then, they have asked her about other murders throughout Ohio. She has led them to a strong suspect in each one. Uncanny, huh?" Mulder leaned back in his chair and put his intertwined hands behind his head.

"Sounds like an episode of 'Unsolved Mysteries' to me." She stood up from behind her desk and stretched.

"Ah, that's what I love about you, Scully. Your unwavering skepticism and your prejudgment that there will always be an explanation besides paranormal phenomenon." Mulder reached over and took a sip of Scully's untouched coffee. He made a face. "How can you stand skim milk in your coffee, for god's sake? Something wrong with cream?"

"Okay, Robert Stack, let's knock off these files tonight, and I'll bet you by midnight, I will have a perfectly rational explanation of all this."

"I bet you will too. But I won't believe a word of it."

She reached out and lightly punched him on the shoulder. "And you call *me* close-minded?" she said. As she pulled back her arm, she glanced at her watch.

"Mulder, I have a great idea. Why don't we finish these tonight at my place. I bought some fresh pasta yesterday, and I can make us a quick dinner. I need to get out of this basement."

"Good idea. I'll be at your place in an hour."

"You know what, make that two. I would feel a lot better if I could stop by my health club and get in a quick workout. Okay?"

Mulder grinned as he righted his desk chair, no longer a risk of flipping over. "I would hate to stand between a woman and her exercise. I'll see you at eight."

Scully gathered her stuff and waved goodbye to Mulder as she headed toward the garage. Looks like rain, she thought to herself.


	3. Chapter 3

**Author's Note: I realize that I never put any kind of disclaimer or note at the beginning of the story! Silly, silly me; must be that chip in my head. I wrote this story in 1998, and it has sat on my computer (actually, several computers) since then. I have written several fanfics for another show, and when I bumped into this story recently, I thought, what the heck, it's done, might as well post it. I am going through and editing the chapters now (it's nice to know my writing has improved a bit over the past 13 years!), and I should have the entire story up by tomorrow. I hope I justly portrayed the heart-breakingly beautiful, bone-deep "Skully angst" that made me love her character, and the show, so much.  
><strong>

**Oh yea, disclaimers: I don't own the characters of Dana Scully or Fox Mulder. And the X-files aren't mine either. If they were, I would have no idea where to put them in my house . All hail Chris Carter!**

* * *

><p><strong>Tuesday, April 8<br>**

**8:35p.m.**

**Scully's apartment**

Scully jumped of her car and grabbed her things from the back seat, hardly noticing slow heavy drops of rain that started to fall. She looked up and noticed that she was parked right behind Mulder. Oh crap, she frowned. He's going to be pissed that I'm so late.

Rush hour traffic was heavy, and it took much longer for her to get to the gym than she had anticipated. She did 30 minutes on the StairMaster, and then headed home without even showering. If we had just stayed at the office and worked, we would be almost done by now, she thought guiltily. But instead, she had three hours of paperwork and an impatient Mulder waiting for her. Scully couldn't hold the heavy sigh that escaped her lips.

She ran up the stairs to her apartment and dropped her belongings at her feet as she fumbled with the keys. She opened her door, expecting to see Mulder sitting at her dining room table pouring over the files. Instead, her apartment was pitch black. Wonder where he is, she mused, concern leaking into her consciousness.

Scully turned on the light in the entrance way to her apartment, and then noticed Mulder's form sitting with his head down in a chair in the corner of the living room.

"Jesus, you scared me, Mulder. Why are you sitting in the dark like that?" Mulder didn't answer. Jeez, he really is pissed off.

"Listen, I'm sorry I'm late. Traffic was terrible. Let me grab a quick shower and then I can get the pasta ready. I'm starved."

She stepped forward and turned on the living room light, and then bent down to take off her shoes. "Actually, if you wouldn't mind boiling the water while I shower, this would go a lot…" She stopped. Scully looked up at Mulder, and he had one of those frozen looks on his face that made her heart race from fear. Oh god, what now, what happened.

Scully took a step toward him. "Hey Mulder, are you okay? Is something wrong? What do you have in your hands?" She stopped in mid stride as Mulder held up what he had resting in his lap. Oh dear god no no no, please. This isn't happening.

Morphine.

She stopped breathing. Inanely her mind traveled back to the time when she was 15 and her father caught her smoking. She was so afraid of his reaction that she thought she would die on the spot from a heart attack; she was certainly wishing she would. That's how she felt now, watching Mulder hold the morphine bags in his hands. Her secret, her escape.

"What the hell is this, Scully?" His voice shook slightly.

You know damn well what it is, she thought. She said nothing.

"Dammit, what is this for? I asked you a question!"

Scully felt her throat tighten and the pulse in her temple pounding. "How dare you speak to me like that! And how *dare* you snoop through my apartment! Where the hell do you get off…"

Mulder interrupted. "I fell when I was walking up the stairs to your apartment this evening." He opened his palms to her, both which revealed deep stigmata-like scrapes. "I was looking in your bathroom for some Band-Aids and antibiotic cream. Instead I found these underneath the sink." He gestured to the IV bags in his lap. "Now I answered your question, so answer mine. What is this for? I don't peg you as a druggie, so I am really at a loss to explain this."

Scully looked him in the eye. " It's none of your business."

"Cut that crap out, Scully. Your health is my business, whether you want it to be or not. Either you are a lot sicker and in pain than I think you are…"

"I'm fine, Mulder! How many times to I have to keep telling you that?"

"…or you are planning to commit suicide."

Scully could not escape his ice-cold stare. She wanted to look somewhere, anywhere, than at the taut line along his jaw and his angry eyes, but she couldn't look away. I have nothing to be ashamed of, she thought. I will not stand here like a guilty child and stare at my feet.

Still, she said nothing.

Mulder realized that this was a battle of wills. He also knew he had put her on the defensive, and every time he did that, Scully either froze him out or came at him with her claws extended. This time it was the former. Her silence only made him more infuriated.

"Listen, I may not be a doctor, but even I know that this is enough morphine to snow a horse. And I don't think you picked this up at the drugstore along with your toothpaste and Tampax. You obviously got this for a reason, and I think I have a right to know why. What is going on with you?"

Scully's face got red, and her breath quickened. "You know exactly what it is for, so cut the bullshit. You want to run away from my cancer, pretend it is all a bad dream so you can continue combing the earth for your beloved aliens and your unending search for the truth. But I can't run and wish this away. I'm dying, Mulder. I am rudely reminded that my body is housing a golfball size tumor with each nosebleed and headache. Every time I'm particularly tired, or my stomach hurts, or I get dizzy, I worry that the cancer had metastasized, and before long I'll be in a hospital bed, unable to move or think or even breathe on my own. The hell I am going to let that happen, Mulder. The hell…"

Her words caught in her throat and turned into a sob. She sunk into the chair she was leaning against and covered her face with her hands. "Damn you, Mulder, for finding those," she said softly, trying not to let the tears in her eyes roll down her face. Do not cry, do not cry, she chanted over and over in her head, like a mantra.

"I refuse to accept that you want to die, Scully. I refuse to accept that you would just give up and kill yourself. That's not who you are, that's never been who you are. I watched you survive a coma when everyone else had given up on you. You didn't give up then. Why now?" Scully looked up at him, sitting across the room with a tortured look on his face. You would think by looking at him that he is the one who is dying, she thought.

"Mulder, you can accept what you want to, but denial is a luxury I can't afford right now. I am not a cat, and I do not have nine lives. People wake up from comas every day, but no one survives a malignant nasopharangeal tumor. The medical fact is that…"

"To hell with your goddammed medical facts!" Mulder roared, as he jumped to his feet and started toward her. He looked to Scully as if he was coming over to shake her by the shoulders. "There is no rationality in death. How do you think your family would feel if you gave up and took your own life? What would that do to your mother to know that you took the easy way out with an armful of morphine rather than fight this?"

Scully got to her feet and walked over to Mulder, her face inches from his. She took deep ragged breaths, trying with every fiber in her body to resist reaching out and hitting him. "Would she feel a hell of a lot better watching me waste away in a fucking hospital bed? Would you, Mulder? Would you? Because we both know this has nothing to do with how my family would feel, but how you would feel. Would it kill you for me to take my own life when the pain got to great? Were you getting off on the idea that some alien would swoop down in the eleventh hour and save me? Then you could prove their existence and save your partner at the same time, how goddamned noble of you. Or would you prefer to watch me die slowly in pain in some hospital bed, so you could nurse every bit of guilt you could from my death? Would that feel good to you, to add it to the laundry list of things you feel responsible for, starting with Samantha. Tell me what it is, Mulder, since I'm damn sure that this has absolutely nothing to do with me or what I want."

Mulder looked like he had been slapped. Spare me the puppy dog eyes tonight, she thought. I am no longer susceptible.

"What do you mean, this has nothing to do with you, it is what I want. I really doubt you were thinking about me, or anyone else, when you got that morphine. This has nothing to do with me, Scully. It is your decision to take the easy way out."

Scully laughed, a bitter, sarcastic laugh. Such lies. Such self-blindness.

She decided to speak the truth to him.

"Mulder, everything is about you. It always has been. You see everything in the world in the context of how it affects you, only you, never as an entity unto itself. I know perhaps all people are somewhat like that, but you are the most brutally honest about it. My cancer has nothing to do with my life, my death. It is about you losing a friend, a partner, making you a few feet farther from truth. Your concern wraps around me, through me, but ultimately returns back to you. I know that, I have accepted that. But this needs to be different. My death is mine, alone, by itself, and for once has nothing to do with you. Please accept that."

Mulder turned slowly and sunk back down in the corner chair where Scully had found him that evening. He stepped over the bags of morphine that had fallen from his lap when he jumped up so angrily. They lay on the floor like two dead fish with blank eyes staring at him. He looked at the IV bags for a minute, and then looked back up at Scully.

"Is that really what you think of me, Scully? That I am incapable of seeing anything else except how it affects me? Is that really your perception?"

I can take this all back, she thought. I can apologize, I can assure him I was wrong and I didn't mean it. I am used to walking the tightrope of Mulder's psyche. I can make this all go away.

But she heard herself as if she was on top of a mountain listening to a whisper emanating from the cannon below. "Yes, I do, Mulder. I really do." She couldn't believe her own cruelty.

Now it was his turn to bury his face in his hands.

What have I done, she thought.

She crossed the room hurriedly, almost tripping on the IV bags. She knelt down besides Mulder and touched his shoulder. He flinched.

"Look Mulder," she started almost pleading, "we are both tired and under a lot of stress. We said some things we didn't mean tonight, so could we both forget it, please? We have a lot of work to do to prepare for tomorrow, and we need to get started. Fighting isn't going to help us figure out this case. I am going to take a quick shower, and when I get out, I'll make dinner and we can eat as we work. Okay?"

Just look at me, she thought. Just once.

Scully saw the slight nod and interpreted it as forgiveness. She got up, glad to finally be away from Mulder. She headed toward the bathroom and shut the door. She turned the shower to its hottest and took off her clothes to let the steam envelope her naked body, part of her wishing she could disappear into the cloud. She stepped into the nearly scalding shower, hardly noticing the heat on her skin. She buried her head underneath the shower head, feeling the water wash down her back, between her breasts, into her ears. If only I could undo this night, she thought. If only I hadn't said what I had said. If only I had gotten to my apartment first. If only he hadn't found that damn morphine.

If only I didn't have cancer.

She didn't know at first that she was crying; not until the saltiness reached her tongue did she realize that it just wasn't the shower that was burning her face. She scrubbed her cheeks, forehead, neck with soap, hoping somehow to wash away her tears so Mulder couldn't see their traces. Don't cry, don't cry, the mantra rang in her ears. Scully washed her hair, then the rest of her, and then stepped onto the bathmat dripping wet and reached across for her towel. She caught of glimpse of herself in the steam-covered mirror over the sink. She walked over and wiped the mirror off with her right hand, just enough for her to see her face clearly. Red eyes, dammit, she thought. She turned away and started vigorously drying herself off. She found her old white robe, slipped into it, and quickly exited the bathroom and headed toward the bedroom. Scully threw on an old pair of jeans and a sweater, and pulled her still-wet hair back in a scrunchy. She reached into her bedroom dresser drawer and found some powder and lipstick, which she quickly applied. Who am I trying to impress, she thought. I could walk out to the living room stark naked and Mulder wouldn't notice.

After slipping on her Keds, Scully took a deep breath and plastered a smile on her face. She walked out to the living room, calling Mulder's name in what sounded like forced cheerfulness.

No answer. He's still brooding. Great. This is gonna be a wonderful evening. She looked around. No Mulder. She walked into the dining room. No one. Scully turned back and headed toward the bathroom, but stopped when she noticed the door was wide open, just as she had left it.

The house wrapped its empty arms around her and squeezed.

He left. He walked out on me. Wouldn't be the first time, she thought bitterly. But this wasn't the case of him abandoning her to chase after some minutia of evidence. They were in the middle of a serious argument and he chose to walk out. Damn him for this.

She instinctively began to reach for the phone on the kitchen wall and hit the memory button with Mulder's number on it. She woke up and pushed down the receiver before the phone even began to ring at his apartment. No. I have done nothing wrong, and I am not going to apologize for any of this. He had no right to question my personal choices. As for the rest of the conversation, well, maybe it was time Mulder heard that his self-centeredness has become almost a vortex, and she was tired trying to fight against the forces sucking her in. From now on, this is about me. But her declaration of independence from Mulder rang hollow in her soul.

As she hung up the phone, she leaned heavily against the kitchen counter, realizing how tired she was. Something in the sink caught her eye. She walked closer, and fought another bilious wave of anger that came into her throat when she saw what was there. Lying in the sink were the two bags of morphine. They had been slashed by the kitchen knife that lay beside them, and the precious fluid had run down the sink. Scully stared in horror for a second, and then picked up the knife and threw it against the wall with all the strength she possessed.


	4. Chapter 4

**Author's Note: Wow, I just can't believe the avalanche of feedback I have gotten for this little old story! I'm so glad I dug it out of the recesses of my computer and dusted off the cobwebs. Many thanks to everyone who has taken time to leave a review! I have written most of my fanfic for The Closer, and I'm lucky to hear from 5 people. But I think fanfic was born in the X-files/Buffy era, and it is so heartening to see the love for my favorite show is still going strong.**

**This is an extremely short chapter, but I wanted to break things up a little, because Chapter 5, the last chapter, is really, really long.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Dana Scully, Fox Mulder, or the X-files. If I did, that basement office would be used for a lot more naughtier things than slideshows of dead cows, that's for sure! lol Bowstochriscarter.  
><strong>

* * *

><p><strong>April 9<strong>

**3:03a.m.**

**Scully's apartment**

Scully dreamed.

Here dream was thick, the consistency of a melted Popsicle on a summer sidewalk. Every time she tried to move, to speak, or to think, she felt like she was swimming through honey. She lay on her back with her eyes closed, glued shut. Yet somehow she could see, perhaps sense, the brightly colored swirls surrounding her, over her, through her. Like red demons they hissed in her ear, yet she wasn't afraid, she was calm, peaceful. That is, until she felt an ice cold hand on her cheek, like the blade of a knife. With great effort she pulled her eyes open and saw Mulder standing over her, touching her face, trying to tell her something, but Scully couldn't hear what he was saying. Slowly, a black tear slid down his cheek and off his face, and Scully opened her mouth to catch the falling tear. The tear tasted sweet, almost sickly sweet, but the taste was comforting somehow. Then she knew, in her dream-wisdom, what liquid Mulder's black tear was made of. Morphine.

Scully woke with a start and fell off the couch, nearly missing the coffee table. Her heart pounded as she tried to remember where she was and why she was on the floor. As reality came to her, she realized she had fallen asleep on the couch fully clothed. After she discovered that Mulder had left, she slumped on the couch and stared at the ceiling for hours, thinking. She thought of Missy, her mother, Mary, Eleanor Roosevelt. She thought of all the women she admired. She thought of Mulder, who took his convictions and battered them into a shield to ward off others who dared to come too close. I was close, she thought. But not anymore, not now. She remembered what she had said to Mulder after she woke up from the coma two years earlier. "I had the strength of your convictions," she had told him. But what convictions did she have to make her strong? Science? That there were nice neat safe answers for everything? That the world could be turned into a sterile place if only you found the right formulas? There is tremendous comfort in that philosophy, she believed. Science put the chaotic world into a context. But an incurable brain tumor doesn't fit into _any_ context. And now I'm lost, so lost. It just feels so much easier to kill myself before the disease progresses and I am stuck fighting unseen and poorly understood enemies. I can't win, there isn't a solution, and I've been battling blind for a long time now, she thought angrily, feeling unwanted tears sting her eyes. No more.

It was to those thoughts that Scully had fallen into a dream-cluttered sleep. She slowly picked herself up off the floor and ran her hands through her still-damp hair, trying to ignore the aches in her body. She walked into the kitchen and got a glass of water in hopes that a drink might wake her up a bit. She stared as the water washed over the drained bags of morphine that she had been too furious earlier to remove from the sink; she didn't think she had ever felt so depressed and hopeless in her entire life. Scully put the empty glass down and headed back toward the couch to go back to sleep. She stopped when she realized what she was doing. Oh Jesus, you're turning into Mulder, ignoring a perfectly good bed to sleep on the couch. Maybe his double bed feels unbearably empty, she thought. Like mine does sometimes.

The thought of Mulder made her wince as she collapsed into the nearest chair. She innately knew that Mulder was awake in his apartment right now, brooding about their fight. She could call him right now and he would be up, answering on the first ring with his characteristic monotone "Mulder." She could apologize to him, or she could continue to yell. The way she was feeling, Scully was leaning toward yelling because she had more than enough justification to do so. Mulder got rid of the morphine, her only chance for a gentle passage. Bastard. While she was at it, could chew him a new one for being far too busy chasing after aliens to notice her and what was going on in her life. She could scream at him for the four years she loved him and he chose to ignore that love, even though she was almost sure he felt the same way. She could pound on his chest for all the times he put himself in danger without a second thought, as if his life was so much cheaper than those around him. Scully had her shoes on and was heading across the room for her coat before she realized it, an infusion of ire quickening her pulse and turning her face red. I need him to acknowledge this anger that is boiling over and spilling all over her life. His life too. Their lives. And poisoning us both.

Scully hadn't noticed the pouring rain until she was outside. She ran to her car as the puddles soaked through her Keds and splashed up the leg of her jeans. She got to her car and slammed the door, pulling back her hair off of her soaked face. She turned on the defroster and sat in the car for a few minutes until the fog on the windows dissipated. What the hell am I doing, she thought wearily. She felt a silver chain was attached to her, and she was being pulled against her will to Mulder's apartment. To Mulder.


	5. Chapter 5

**Author's note: Again, thanks to everyone who has reviewed this story. The response has been amazing, and I really appreciate it.**

**This is the last chapter. Make yourself comfortable, because it's a long one.**

**Disclaimer: Dana Scully, Fox Mulder, and the X-Files are owned by Chris Carter and Fox. I just like to sneak them out every once in awhile and play with them. No harm done, right?  
><strong>

* * *

><p><strong>April 9<strong>

**4:15am**

**Mulder's Apartme**nt

There was no traffic, and even though Dana drove slowly because of the storm, she reached Mulder's apartment in 15 minutes. She was surprised to note that from the outside, his place appeared to be dark, indicating that contrary to her beliefs, he was asleep. I should just leave and let sleeping Mulders lie. Maybe he will have forgotten about this by the morning. Scully kept telling hopeful lies to herself as she headed toward his apartment building. She unlocked the front door and headed toward apartment 42, her body seemingly on autopilot and paying no heed to her brain. She knocked softly. No reply. A minute later, she knocked louder. After Scully had shifted her weight from her left foot to her right and then back again, she heard movement in the apartment.

"Who is it?" Mulder called out, his voice thick with sleep—or suspicion.

Scully took a deep breath and let it out. "It's me. Can I come in?"

"What are you doing, selling girl scout cookies at four in the morning?" Mulder had that irate edge to his voice that Scully knew all too well. This is ridiculous, she thought angrily. He is going to keep me out here begging all night. She silently pulled his key from her pocket and opened the door.

Mulder was leaning against the wall, and by the look on his face she could tell he was surprised that she just let herself in without permission. Scully shut the door behind her and turned around to look at him. Despite all the rage churning in her, now that she was facing him, she couldn't think what to to say. She settled for crossing her arms in front of her chest and gave him her best evil eye.

"Well?" Mulder said, shrugging his shoulders. "If you came over to chat about the weather, which doesn't look too hot right now, it really could have waited until the morning." He looked Scully in the eye. "Or is there something else that brought you out in the middle of the night."

Scully took a step toward him. "We weren't finished," she said.

"With what?"

"Our conversation."

"Where I come from, they call that a fight."

"Okay then," Scully said, trying to stay calm. "Our fight. I never pegged you as a quitter, Mulder. Or someone as petty as to destroy another person's property. You have a hell of a lot of nerve. That morphine belonged to me. You had absolutely no right to destroy it."

Mulder turned around and walked over to his couch and sat down in the middle, leaving Scully no room to sit next to him. She followed him and sat in his office chair instead.

"Scully, somehow I don't think that that morphine really belonged to you. You can get in a lot of trouble for possession, you know."

"Can't say I really care at this point."

"What did you do, go to one of your doctor friends and have them steal the morphine for you? Gotta love that old-boy network doctors have, or should I say, that old-girl's network." He leaned back, looking satisfied with himself as he watched Scully squirm in her chair. "But don't worry, Scully, you still have your gun. Quick, easy, but a bit messy. I just hope I won't be the one to find you…"

"Stop it Mulder!" Scully spat, her voice deadly. "You don't have to be so crass!"

"Gee, sorry, Scully. You know me. I'm just so darned self-centered. I know I should be concerned that your dying, but I'm too busy planning what I can do with your side of the office once you're gone. I could really use some more bookshelves…"

"Shut up, you son of a bitch! Shut up!" Before Scully knew what she was doing, she got up, crossed the room, and slapped Mulder with all of her strength, all reserve gone. He quickly put one hand on his stinging cheek and reached up with the other and grabbed at Scully's wrist. "Dammit, Scully," he mumbled. "Calm down!"

_Mulder_ dared to tell _her_ to calm down? This only made Scully angrier. She watched Mulder's form melt and turn red, and a scarlet glow seemed to permeate the room. The roar of the blood in her ears was almost deafening, and what little of her brain was still functioning rationally was drowned out by the rage pulsating through her. Scully melded with the red, the liquid rage, and she didn't fight it. She allowed herself to drown.

She formed her open hands into fists and began to hit Mulder in this face, arms, chest, anywhere she could reach. Mulder looked shocked and put his arms in front of his face for protection. Scully heard her voice through the redness, though it sounded very distant, like an echo in the mountains.

"Damn you, Mulder! What the hell do you care if I die? You never notice me, I'm just a goddamned piece of office furniture to you! Four fucking years of running after you, trying to make sure you don't die, loving you and being ignored, damn you for messing up my life!" Scully's tears nearly choke her as her blows to Mulder become more urgent.

"Stop it, Scully, now!" Mulder yelled.

She couldn't. Feelings locked up in closets for years come pouring out faster than Scully could channel them through her fists. "I don't mean anything to you, I never have, I never could compete with the aliens and the fucking truth and Samantha! I hate you for that! I hate you Mulder, I really do. You have sucked my life away, and for what?" She sobbed and her aching arms forced her to slow down her blows.

Mulder looked up at her when she mentioned Samantha's name. He noticed that the force of her attack was flagging, so he quickly reached up and grabbed both of her wrists. He pulled her down to the couch, twisting her violently so she landed on her back. He then leaned his upper body onto her, still holding tightly to her wrists.

"Your hurting me Mulder! Stop it! Get off of me!" Scully felt like she was suffocating under his weight. She twisted underneath Mulder, but he only leaned on her more heavily. Her wrists were beginning to chafe from his grip.

"Not until you calm down, Scully. I'm a little tired of being your punching bag. What has gotten into you?"

Scully looked at Mulder for the first time since he pinned her on the couch. The red anger began to fade, and Mulder became Mulder again. She noticed a small trickle of blood coming from his nose. As she looked at Mulder's battered face looming over her, Scully felt something tear in the pit of her stomach. A deep sob, so profound that at first she didn't know what it was, birthed from her soul. It spilled out of her mouth like a wave onto a beach, followed by another, and another. There was no mantra of vulnerability this time, just deep, primal sobs that made her shake. Scully managed to twist her body toward the back of the couch so Mulder couldn't see her face. He relaxed his grip and wrapped his arms around her waist as if to steady her from the cries that were coming louder.

Scully couldn't think; she became a medium on which unwanted images, feelings, and emotions were painted; all her pain was on display all at once in her brain in a macabre art gallery. She saw the crystal Melissa always wore sparkling at the base of her neck as she lay in her coffin. She watched her father's ashes being poured into the ocean as "Beyond the Sea" played on her mother's cheap portable radio. She felt the bite of jealousy as she watched Mulder dance with Phoebe, wondering why she wasn't the one being kissed. She felt herself stepping over the threshold of her apartment after returning home from the post-abduction hospitalization and noticing remnants of yellow police tape on her walls. She was floating above her body on the bathroom floor of a hotel room, as the blood from her nose made a small puddle on the floor and she prayed for the headache to stop. The sharp, cold pain of the tattoo needle was on her back again, as she heard herself take deep, almost sexual gasps from the pain. And the shame of Ed Jerse, and the shame of all her weaknesses, and failures, and endless disappointments, washed through her.

She cried for what felt like an eternity. Finally, the sobs lessened in their intensity, and it was only when they had almost ceased did she notice that Mulder was stroking her hair. She couldn't think. There was nothing left to think. Or to feel. All possible thoughts and emotions had already been filtered through her soul tonight, leaving big, ragged holes.

After a few minutes, he spoke softly to her. "That was an awful lot that you had hiding in there, Scully. Are you okay?"

Her face was still turned away from Mulder's, and she buried it in the back of the couch. She nodded.

Mulder sat up. "Don't go anywhere. I will be right back." He returned in a few minutes and knelt in front of the couch. He took Scully's shoulders. "Sit up, Scully. I brought you some water. It's okay." Scully wasn't sure what was okay, but she allowed him to guide her into a sitting position. He handed her a box of Kleenex, which she took gratefully. She was coming back to life, slowly, and she realized how frightening she must look to him right now. After she blew her nose, Mulder handed her a warm wet washcloth and she wiped the tears and mucus off of her face. The glass of water he gave her next was cold, and she drank every drop and handed the glass back to him. He remained kneeling at her feet as he reached out to stroke her face.

"Better?"

Scully found her voice. "Yeah. Thanks." She couldn't bring herself to look at him, not yet.

"I could count on one finger the number of times I have seen you cry, Scully. If you were counting the same for me you would need an abacus."

"I don't like people to see me cry," she said.

"Why do you think that you always have to be the strong one?"

"Someone has to be, Mulder." She wiped her nose and rubbed her sore eyes, still avoiding Mulder's gaze.

"What is that supposed to mean, Scully? That I'm not strong? That you need to take care of me?"

Scully sighed. "I'm the anchor, Mulder. I have always been the anchor."

"Anchor for what?"

"For you. For us. I think of things in nautical terms, I guess because of my father. I'm the one who holds everything in place, so you have the freedom to do what you want to do. You know the boat will always be there when you get back, so to speak, because of me. It's my job to find you when you run off half-cocked about something to make sure you are okay. And I am the one who is always smoothing things over with Skinner, trying to convince people in the Bureau that our work has some validity. Me doing all of this allows you to continue on your search for the truth, whatever the hell that is."

Mulder was silent for awhile. When Scully finally looked at him, he was staring out the window with a distant look on his face. After a few minutes, he spoke.

"That's quite a job description, Scully. I know all that you have done for me, and the X-files, even though I guess I am not too good at acknowledging it. But my throbbing face tells me that you need a little more than an apology."

"Honestly, I don't know what I need anymore."

They sit in silence for a few more minutes. Mulder reached up to Scully and brushed stray hairs off of her face.

"You are right, you know, when you said that I only see things in the context of how they affect me."

"I'm sorry I said that, Mulder. We were both angry and…"

Mulder interrupted. "It's okay, Scully. You are right, and I guess I needed someone to tell me that to my face. I have always been like that. Self-centered."

Scully smiled. "Yeah, but you have your moments."

Mulder smiled back. "Don't we all. But seriously, Scully, I have a question for you, and I want you to think about it for awhile before you answer, okay?"

Scully had no idea what Mulder wanted to know. Then she remembered that she had mentioned her feelings for him when she was attacking him. Oh God no, she thought. He is going to ask me about that. And I'm way to vulnerable right now to tell him anything but the truth.

Mulder took a deep breath. "Scully, I want you to think about all the times you asked me for something. Think about any demands you have put on me, on our friendship, over the past few years. Really think about it, okay?"

Scully let out the breath she had been holding in, relieved he wasn't asking her if she had more-than-friendly feelings for him. Her mind skimmed over the peaks and valleys of the past few years, trying to think of the times she has asked him for help of any kind. She chewed her lip as she concentrated, trying to jump over the invisible wall that was always there, the wall that she had put up that made the friendship flow one way, to Mulder only. Surely there must have been times she needed his help desperately and had asked Mulder to put her first. Surely.

After a long time she spoke, wondering how her silence was interpreted by Mulder. "Okay, there was that time when we were on our very first case, and I rushed into your room with those bug bites on my back for you to examine. You told me what they were and calmed me down. I was so embarrassed, but you didn't make me feel stupid."

Mulder grinned. "Good night, how could I forget that? There was my new partner, practically au naturale in my hotel room. I knew right then that we were going to get along very well."

Scully reached out and gently punched him on the shoulder.

"Ow, no more! I have been beaten enough for one night, and you definitely do _not_ hit like a girl. What else have you come up with besides the naked mosquito bite incident?"

Scully chewed her lip. "That time in New Mexico, after I shot you. I knew that government file we found had my name on it, and I asked you to find out why."

"And I did a bang-up job with that request, didn't I?" he said sarcastically.

"What do you mean? We found those files in West Virginia. We learned more about the experiments the government is doing on abductees. You led me to Penny Northern. You found out everything you could, Mulder. Don't beat yourself up because of the cancer, okay?"

Mulder nodded. "Okay, what else?"

"Well, there was that time you went to my friend Sheila's wedding with me, so I wouldn't have to be asked a million times why I didn't have a boyfriend at my age."

Mulder laughed. "Oh Scully, it was worth every minute of it to see the look on your face when the bouquet was heading in your direction. I never saw someone run away from something so fast in my life!"

"Yeah well, if I had caught it, Sheila's mom would start to plan our wedding right there and then. Believe me, I wanted to get as far away from that bouquet as possible."

"The bride's very large brothers had already cornered me in the bathroom and asked me when I was going to make an honest woman out of you. I told them that you had picked me up at a bar just the weekend before, and I would need to know you a little better before I popped the question."

Scully covered her mouth in mock horror. "Oh Mulder, you didn't!"

"I did."

"No wonder Mrs. Shannon told my mom that I should quit the FBI before it completely ruins me. My mom had no idea what she meant! Oh my!" Scully laughed and moved down to the floor where Mulder was sitting. "I am feeling a little too tall up there," she explained.

"Okay Scully, what else did you come up with? Surely that can't be the end of the list."

Scully paused. She didn't want to bring up the topic that she had forbade Mulder to talk about: a ban borne out her desperate desire to forget. But she had to.

"Mulder, I know you did a lot to try and find me when I was taken. I've been told that you didn't sleep for three months. And I appreciate how hard that must have been on you. My mom told me that you were running around half crazy when I was in the coma."

Mulder's face twisted. "Once again, worthless. All that work didn't help find you."

"That's irrelevant, Mulder." What matters is that you did everything in your power to help me, at the expense of your health and well-being."

Mulder nodded, looking down at his lap with half-closed eyes, as if the weight of the memory was almost too much for him to stand. "Anything else?"

Scully shifted to make herself more comfortable on the floor. "Ah, Mulder, I couldn't think of anything else. A couple of those were pretty important things, you know. The length of the list isn't important—the quality is."

Mulder stood up and walked to the kitchen. He came back with two bottles of beer and a worried look in his face. He bent down and handed Scully, who was still sitting on the floor, her beer, and plopped down in his office chair with a sigh. A hearty swig from his drink didn't make him look less morose.

"That's all I could come up with too, except the wedding thing. I honestly can't think of many times when you asked me for something, anything, Scully."

"I've wanted to, Mulder, countless times. But I just thought…" her voice trailed off.

"Thought what? That I couldn't be the anchor, even for a little while? That I would lose respect for you if you showed me you were human? Was that it?"

Scully mutely nodded.

After a minute, Mulder said softly, "did you ever think, Scully, that you let it be all about me? I'm not trying to make excuses for my behavior, and I am certainly not trying to blame my shortcomings on you. But maybe I forgot to look and see how things affect other people, I mean you, because we were both so good at putting me first? You never spoke up, never demanded for me to acknowledge you. It's like we both got lost in my search for the truth."

Scully looked at Mulder with his serious, pained look. I can't believe this, she thought. Tonight he has enough insight for the both of us.

She spoke slowly, hand-picking each word, for the last thing she wanted was to hurt Mulder any more than she already had. And if that meant opening opening herself up, exposing private places for him to see, well, so be it.

"I never thought I would be the kind of woman who would let herself get swallowed up by somebody else's life. I grew up watching traditional Catholic women who sacrificed everything for their husbands, who played the role of the good suffering Catholic mothers. Thank god, mom and dad were different. Mom taught me how to be strong, how to be my own person."

"You are your own person, Scully. That is one of the things I admire most about you. You have more self-confidence than any other woman I have ever met."

Scully chewed her lower lip. "But for the past few months, even before the cancer, I have felt all of that slipping. I can't explain it, Mulder, but I felt like I was living your life, not mine anymore." She cleared her throat and looked out the window. "I guess that's why the whole Ed Jerse thing happened. I needed to have, or to do, something that was truly mine, not just an extension of you." She turned and looked Mulder in the eye. "You were a real jerk about that, you know, Mulder. I was embarrassed enough without your smart ass comments about my two personal appearances in the X-files."

"Oh Scully, I'm so sorry. I act like that when I don't know what to say. I couldn't understand why you got that tattoo, why you had a one-night stand. I felt like I was staring across my desk at a stranger, and where the hell did my Scully go? I knew you were angry at me, and I should have apologized to you, but we felt so distant from each other. And then we found out about the cancer…" his voice trailed off. "I guess I didn't realize until tonight how upset and hurt you have been lately. But you know, Scully, you are not exactly a big help when it comes to figuring out what is bothering you. If I hear one more 'I'm fine Mulder' I am going to scream."

"Okay, okay. I haven't exactly been forthcoming. I'm just not very good at being vulnerable, you know? I hate the way it makes me feel. It goes against my grain."

"I think it's time to learn, Scully. Look at what happened tonight. You've been so angry at me for so long, but couldn't tell me. And so it all exploded, _you_ exploded. Keeping all that angst to yourself can't be good for your health." Mulder paused and lowered his voice. "Please don't push me away anymore, Scully. It's killing me. It's really killing me. And tonight, when I saw the morphine…" Mulder rubbed his hand over his face, covering his expression from Scully.

"What about the morphine, Mulder?" Scully prodded.

"I guess it felt like another like another cold analytical decision of yours. Like you look at your cancer as a problem, as a troubling case, and the morphine was the best solution. Neat and clean. The way you like it. And I just felt-and here is my self-centeredness rearing its ugly head-that maybe you could be that cold not only about your own life, but my life too? Like you were just going to leave on a Friday, say goodbye Mulder, have a good weekend, see you on Monday, and go home and kill yourself. Just like that. Without giving a damn about me. Maybe I have the hope you don't, Scully, I don't know. But I am not as unrealistic as you think. I know you are sick. But can't you have enough faith in me to think that I would do everything in my power so you would go comfortably? That I would take care of you?"

"Dammit Mulder, that's what I am afraid of!"

"Afraid of being taken care of? Is this what the morphine was all about? So you could die before you became sick and dependent?"

Scully rolled her eyes in impatience. "Of course it is, Mulder. I tried to tell you that tonight at my apartment. I don't want a repeat of the scene two years ago. I don't want a bunch of people standing around my bed feeling sorry for me. Or feeling sorry for themselves. I rather be remembered as I am now, not some frail suffering shell. And you had no right, no right in hell, to destroy those morphine bags. They belong to me, and despite your fears of my insensitive clinical detachment, it is my choice how I want to die. I'll say it yet again: I want you to remember me as the woman you've known for the past four years, not some hollowed-out stranger."

Mulder's face was serious. "I promise to remember you doing one of your episodes of pontification about Darwinian theory. Does that make you feel a little better?"

Scully steadied her breath to calm herself down again. "Actually, I prefer that you remember me as the person who always pulled your butt of the sling," she deadpanned.

"How about immortalizing you the time you were covered with cockroach infected dung? That would be a great picture for me to carry around of you in my wallet."

"Watch it, Mulder, or I'll beat you again!" She realized they were both laughing, and for a second, things felt almost back to normal. Almost.

Mulder became serious again. "I want to get back to the issue of you asking for something from me. Okay, Scully, this is your big chance. Tell me what you want from me, tell me what you have wanted from me for the past four years. I'm listening now, okay? So you tell me the truth."

Scully took a deep breath. The hell with vulnerability. I'm sadly mistaken if I think I have anything to lose anymore.

"Okay, Mulder, you asked for it. First of all,I want an apology for what you did tonight, by destroying my private property. After that, well, um... I want to spend time with you outside the office. My apartment seems too big sometimes, and I start thinking thoughts that make my head hurt. And I want you to be there for me when I get sick. I mean, I am asking you to forfeit a chance for a personal tour of Area 51 if I am sick and need you. I know that is a tall order, Mulder, but…"

"It's okay, Scully. Done." He paused, gripping his fingers into fists. "And even though I strongly disagree with you having gone out and gotten IV narcotics for euthanasia, you are right, it was not my place to destroy what belongs to you. I did that in a moment of anger and frustration, and it was the wrong thing for me to do. I am very sorry." He genuinely looked contrite.

Scully took in the sincerity of his statement and his expression, and said, "I accept your apology, but I am still mad about it. I'm honestly not quite ready to completely forgive you."

Mulder nodded. "I get it. It was a serious fuck-up on my part. But go ahead with your wish list anyway, OK?

"Sure, now where was I? Oh yea. I want you to stop ditching me when we are on assignment. I am really sick of chasing you down."

Mulder nodded. "Go on."

"And I want you to talk to me. Really talk, about something besides the X-files. I want to hear funny stories about your life, and I want the chance to tell you about mine. And when I am dying, I want you to be there for me, and for my mother. Like you were when I was sick. Stay with me. Hold my hand. Read to me. Instead of wasting my precious time by seeking out all who should be revenged."

She looked up at Mulder shyly. Here goes nothing, she thought.

"And I would like to wake up in the mornings and find you making coffee in my kitchen."

Mulder leaned back against the couch. "I can do all of that, Scully, I really can." He took her hands in his. "But please promise to let me in, okay? I can't be all that responsive to your needs if I don't know what they are. And yes, I promise to help you, and your mom through this. Regardless of the outcome."

She noticed he didn't mention the coffee.

Suddenly Scully felt all the emotional and physical stress of the last several hours descend upon her in a rush. Her eyes, still sore from crying, involuntarily closed. Scully used her willpower to open them, but she knew she was fading fast. Mulder looked at her with concern.

"All right, Agent Scully, we have had enough of that touchy feely share and care stuff for one night, don't you think? We both really need some sleep if we are going to make it to Ohio tomorrow."

Scully leaned her leaden head against the couch and yawned, not bothering to cover her mouth. "Ohio…the Hoosier state?"

"No, that's Indiana. Ohio is the Buckeye state."

"Mulder, what's a Hoosier?"

"Scully, what's a Buckeye?"

"It's a nut-shaped object that comes from trees indigenous…"

Mulder held up his hand. "Enough! We can contemplate state nicknames on the plane tomorrow. But for now, we both need sleep. You are in no shape to drive home. I'll make up my bed for you, clean sheets and all, and I will sleep in the usual place."

Scully was way too tired to object. She nodded in agreement and slowly put her hands on the ground and began to push herself into a standing position. She made it to her knees; then she was stopped by Mulder's hand on her shoulder. He brought himself to a kneeling position and put his other hand on the back of her neck.

She tilted her head back and knew what was coming. Mulder's lips pressed themselves gently against hers, and despite her exhaustion she felt herself respond with equal force. She opened her mouth and Mulder's tongue entwined with hers, teasing and tasting, and she moaned from the perfection of it. Mulder pulled away when they both became breathless he ran his finger down her cheek and looked into her eyes. Breathe, she told herself. Just breathe.

Mulder continued to caress her cheek. "I know you have loved me for years, Scully." He spoke softly, his voice taking on the husky quality that indicates he is talking about something difficult. "You didn't have to hit me to get that through my head. Even I am not that dense, although it amazes me how my beautiful, brilliant Scully could fall for me. But I know that you know the feeling is mutual. Very mutual." Scully nodded, unable to take her eyes from his. "And to show you how much I care, I need you to answer one question for me."

Her heart was beating so loudly she was sure Mulder would hear it. "What?" she whispered.

Mulder leaned back and crossed his arms in front of his chest, looking very pleased with himself. He smiled wickedly. "Do you like your coffee served to you in bed?"

**THE END  
><strong>

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note 2: There you have it. Clearly, this could have been a 30 chapter saga, following Scully through the progression of her illness to the point of debilitation she dreads, and see what she chooses to do, i.e. euthanasia or die naturally. Even though the morphine is gone, I'm sure Scully will get narcotics prescribed to her at some point for pain, and an overdose would be easy, and as Mulder so spitefully pointed out, she always has her gun. I'm not trying to be crass, I'm just pointing out that I chose not to take this story in that direction. Instead, I wanted Mulder and Scully to finally talk about her illness and impending death. Mulder, who does love to ignore troubling things, was confronted with the reality of Scully's prognosis when he found the morphine in her apartment, and he went a little nuts. Scully, with only a little prodding from Mulder, completely broke down, those "I'm fine"walls crumbling in the face of Mulder's actions so fast and so hard that she physically lashes out and then drowns in a tsunami of emotion. So the story ended up being not about Scully's cancer, but how both of them were handling the idea of her illness and death, which was very, very poorly. My question was, what would happen when they were both confronted with each other's take on the situation? So that's what you got here. I hope it satisfied.<br>**


End file.
